WotH Member wins Silver Medal!

Admin User News

We were all delighted to hear at our last Zoom meeting that Sue Wickstead had two of her children’s books shortlisted as finalists for the The Wishing Shelf Book Awards for 2019 and that ‘A Spooky Tale’ was awarded the silver medal in the the pre-school category.

Jay-Jay the Supersonic Bus’ came out in print in 2014 and she followed it with a several more children’s books including more Playbus tales all based on real vehicles featuring not only Jay-Jay, but Daisy Daydream and Sparky the Dragon Bus (who offered play opportunities to disabled children and their families).

Sue works as a supply teacher (at least when schools are open) but has also worked with a Children’s Charity, The Bewbush Playbus Association, which led her to write a photographic history book about it.

She found that many children had never been on a bus before, let alone a ‘Playbus’ and they wanted to know more, so she wrote a fictional tale about their first bus, and the number plate JJK261 gave him his name.

Sue spoke to us previously about her “blog tour” for ‘Sparky the Dragon Bus’ in February – where instead of travel an author and book is featured in online reviews. (We think those may be more popular at present for obvious reasons!)

TA Spooky Tale coverhis month Sue heard she’d been awarded the silver medal for the pre-school category for ‘A Spooky Tale‘. The book was written with her class many years ago and holds fond memories as well as spooky connections. The tag line is, ‘That’s why we didn’t feel well’ (But not due to the coronavirus)

Sue has a new book ready to go, ‘Gloria the Summer Fun Bus‘, and hopes we do actually get a summer of fun this year. Gloria is also inspired by reality, and a bus used to support children during the long summer holidays. Sue hopes that after the lockdown this kind of facility would be a good idea today for children and schools so restricted at the moment.